According to unconfirmed reports, the development of the failed PvP shooter “Concord” may have consumed a budget of $400 million. An industry veteran, Mark Darrah, spoke about this topic.
With the PvP shooter “Concord” PlayStation and the developers at Firewalk Studios certainly delivered the biggest flop of the video game year 2024.
Just a few days after the manageable launch, those responsible decided to launch “Concord”. to be removed from the network and refund players their money. Shortly after the competitive shooter ended, various reports made the rounds about the amount of losses Sony incurred with “Concord”.
While initially there was talk of a budget of $200 million, later reports even spoke of costs in the range of $400 million. But how realistic is this information? A topic that Mark Darrah, one of the creative minds behind the “Dragon Age” series, is now also addressing expressed.
Darrah on the possible $400 million budget
According to his own statements, the “Dragon Age” veteran can certainly understand the reports about a budget of 400 million and considers them realistic. Before going into details, Darrah pointed out that he is not employed by Sony. Therefore, he can only refer to publicly available information and not to insider information.
This includes the start date of the development of “Concord” in 2018 and the approximately 15 months in the alpha phase. A month “at full capacity” would cost Sony about $15,000 per employee, according to Darrah. A number in which Darrah takes into account aspects such as materials, hardware, office space and indirect personnel costs in addition to the actual salary.
“A project that runs into trouble can become really big if you want to get it over the finish line,” the veteran continued. “So, with these two numbers. On average 212 people up to alpha and 900 from alpha to launch, we get a total cost of around $402 million. So it’s possible.”
“Did it cost $400 million? “I’m not sure,” Darrah continued. “But I think we can make it plausible that it was. But of course, in a game with a relatively small scale, it’s difficult to see where all the money went.”
Firewalk one of the most expensive PlayStation studios?
Darrah concluded: “It must have been lost in iterations. It must have been lost due to inefficiencies due to team structure or huge team sizes. The way we just went through it, I think you can do the math that way and it might reflect reality.”
Statements with which the former executive producer behind the “Dragon Age” series is not alone. A recent report from Kotaku also said that Firewalk per capita one of the most expensive PlayStation studios acts at all.
After Mark Darrah decided to leave BioWare at the end of 2020 and take on new challenges, he returned to BioWare in 2023. Darrah is currently working as a consultant on role-playing games “Dragon Age: The Veilguard”which will be available from October 31, 2024.
“Dragon Age: The Veilguard” will be released for the PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
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